Book Review: The Descent By Thomas Dekker

There are things we know we shouldn’t do, but somehow we just can’t help ourselves. Picking scabs, squeezing spots, clicking clickbait headlines. To this collection of compelling but ultimately unsavoury activities, I think we should add ‘reading doping memoirs’. Rarely do we genuinely learn anything new by reading them, and while the reading may be compelling (because maybe there will be some interesting revelation or insight if we just keep on reading) come the end, there’s a sneaking suspicion that all you’ve achieved is lining the pockets of a doper.

To save you the trouble of falling into this trap with The Descent by Thomas Dekker (the ex-Tour riding road rider and hour record attempter), this review of his autobiography will contain spoilers. Stop reading if you don’t want to know what’s going to happen. But it’s all very predictable, so I suspect you could guess if you tried.

First up, he’s going to take some drugs. Recreational ones and performance enhancing ones. And he’s going to sleep with lots of women, and some of them are going to be prostitutes. He’s going to have hopes and dreams, he’s going to train until it hurts, and he’s going to be ruthless in his pursuit of winning. He’s going to earn lots of money, spend it on flashy things, and drive around in fast cars while drunk. Basically, he’s going to be a dick.

But hey, there might be an epiphany. Keep reading! Something will happen and he’ll turn over a new leaf! Plus, every chapter ends with such ‘dum dum DUUMM’ style teaser that, clunk, clunk, clunk, the pages keep turning pretty easily.

I kept reading, and I kept waiting for the contrition, the likeable turnaround, the ‘I’m really ashamed of how I used to be and I’ve devoted the rest of my life to making amends’ tale. If nothing else, Thomas Dekker is honest about the bottomless depths of his unlikeable dick habits (and I mean that in both the personality and penis sense of the word), leading me to believe that somewhere along the line he was going to contrast all the grim stuff with something that might make you sympathise with him. But no, he’s a dick, he knows he’s a dick, and (I think) he remains a dick at the end of the book.

Sure, he’s not a cyclist any more, but instead of living out the rest of his days from a bedsit, he’s landed on his feet, jet setting around with a new rich lady friend, going to museums and gallery openings. There’s a bit of a ‘I wonder what I’ll do next’ reflection at the end of the book, but I didn’t feel that it really added up to a great deal of contrition or apology. He suggests he wants the book to act as a cautionary tale, however as he’s only 33 and doesn’t appear to be having a terribly horrible life despite all his immoral activities, what’s to learn? I can’t help but feel that those clean riders who were beaten by Dekker and never had any taste of the largesse that Dekker has frittered away might wonder how their lives would have panned out had they not been clean themselves.

“It’s absolutely not a publicity book for myself,” he says. “It’s raw, it’s honest. I’m not blaming anybody else. “I’m not proud of this book. I’ve been to hell. My mother read the book and she didn’t go to work for a month. Those are the people who love me the most. The book is way bigger than all those little things that people write articles about for headlines. It’s my life. And I f—-d it up. And I’m aware of that. I’m 33 years old. And if I didn’t sell one book, for me, it’s absolutely the same. I just felt that I needed to write this story down.”

Having read Racing Through the Dark, I might have been inclined to pick up The Descent at some point for another insight. But I won’t now. Sounds thoroughly unsatisfying if there is no contrition at some point. Thank you for the review.

Thanks for the review Hannah. Not sure I would ever have bought it anyway but may well have picked it up in the library if it turned up. I certainly won’t be now. Especially as “cashback” has endorsed your take on the book.

I’ve read too many of these books now, the Hamilton one was good for finally giving the inside lowdown of US Postal / Discovery, the Millar book(s) I’m in the camp that he’s genuine though he could have given up more names and details when he was caught. The books by Walsh, Kimmage et al made me fall out of love with road riding, used to love watching the grand tours and classics, but just felt used by the sport. I can’t watch any professional sport properly anymore, enjoy DH and BMX but no longer passionate about watching others compete. Weirdly I’m starting to get the racing bug at 41, pass the epo, and thanks for the review, will avoid lining the dicks pocket.

Maybe if it was a work of fiction he might have written a different ending 🙂

Might also like to think about how many books have been written by dicks who are writing from their experience of illegal or immoral activities. I’m sure the literary world out be a lot worse off if we dismissed them all.